Mid-Cycle Build Balance Survey

News
62

I just don’t understand how you guys are doing stuff like nerfing smoke bomb / shadow generation just because the working as intended interaction has the potential to scale infinitely and so rather than fixing it so it’s just not literally broken and bugged it’s getting hypernerfed into oblivion…

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Meanwhile “Birds Aren’t Real” has been bugged and unusable since release?

Be consistent not just in how you apply policy or what rules you follow but in what outcomes you deliver to your customers/users.

The whole “It’s getting mid-cycle fixed because it breaks the servers” like, I get it, and I agree, but at the same time as an impacted user that doesn’t really matter to me because at the end of the day my build is getting gutted and I’m watching countless classes run around with crazy damage and crazy permanent survivability and you’re taking mine away.

I think it’s a huge mistake to try to take “server stability” out of the conversation.

My 2c at a high level is “No matter what, deliver similar outcomes to your customers/users.”

What this means in practice is that if you find yourself in a position where you have to start nerfing builds because of bugs, performance issues, server issues, etc - then I think you have your answer - congratulations you’re now in the business of doing mid-cycle balancing and tweaking - and frankly I’m fine with that. In fact I prefer it strongly.

So much fomo and regret when it turns out “the thing I picked this season/cycle sucks and there’s all these other super strong, broken, bugged, glitchy, but not officially considered a bug yet builds that are performing crazy well, maybe I should just reroll that…”

Yes. Do the balancing. Regularly. Aggressively. Keep tuning and tweaking those numbers so that everyone is living in the habitable goldilocks zone of balance. It’s not fair to your players to have them guessing on if every facet of their build may end up as a bug, or end up having some issue that’ll have to be nerfed for server stability or some other reason, and then watch all the other broken but not broken enough to get nerfed builds just sprint ahead of them.

If everyone’s getting dragged up into the goldilocks zone of balance, and all the broken and bugged builds are getting dragged back down into the goldilocks zone of balance, then no one really has anything to cry about because we’re all performing somewhere in a similar ballpark and if we get hit with a nerf, we know everyone else who was overperforming is also getting hit with a nerf at some point in the near future, so we don’t have to feel bad about suddenly being left behind, cause we’re all gonna be getting kneecapped and running at similar speeds in the end.

1 Like
63

You guys are awesome.
I think over performing skills, items are fine in cycle and then be nerfed as it gets people blow some steam and get excited. Long therm poe and personally for me I feel like it didn’t cause any expectations after playing overpowered skills or items and then later being nerfed. Definitely would be more annoying if I was farming towards OP meta build and then it would get nerfed.
As for bug interactions definitely needs fixing straight away.

64

Nerfs/buffs should keep happening quite a lot during these times imo. The closer you get max dps/ehp ratio between build structures the better.

1 Like
65

Nope, nerfing or balancing MID cycle is a pain in the butt… let people have fun with their builds and then, fix it for the next cycle. On other matter, I Cleary passed the bazaar lvl 7 mark, but it does not open for me… I have a char lvl 88 and I’m stuck with the build cuz I can’t buy stuff…

2 Likes
66

I just wanted to echo a point made earlier–

The longer you fail to act on fixing bugs that allow 2000 corruption runs, the more permanent damage is done to your game’s economy and longevity on the market faction. It is rather obvious 2000 corruption runs were not the expected norm.

5 Likes
67

sure mate

68

I totally agree

69

I’d like to see the results of this survey, adjusted somehow for the agree/disagree swap :stuck_out_tongue:
Thanks for setting it up.

70

Form filled out and submitted.

Always, always, ALWAYS fix bugs asap no matter what. That’s the main thing I have to say.

1 Like
71

Honestly do w/e needed, i play the game as i want to with my own builds and i couldnt care less what class is more OP than others.

72

maybe instead of resetting leaderboards due to bugs, make them 1-2 weeks with visible history of previous weeks during cycle

1 Like
73

ty Kain

74

Bugfixing should be done after priority and required effort - what’s the effect on the game, and how long does a fix take?

Minor problems with no quick solution don’t need to be fixed ASAP.

1 Like
75

you know this game is great when the “mixed” reviews from launch have already changed back to mostly positive, keep up the great work EHG

5 Likes
76

Game is unplayable right now if you dont enjoy warlock, falconer or necro. Waste of time trying other builds such as druids, void knights etc. Just a total dumbster 0dmg crap

1 Like
77

What’s the flipside of this? The also probably less than 1% who are using/abusing interactions to achieve significantly overperforming builds?

Are they not also similarly invested in the game, the answer to this, and their build/performance?

Because from my perspective they would probably care quite a bit if they started getting rebalanced/nerfed and strongly dislike the idea of that happening.

Isn’t their situation also “Terminally online gamer with too much stake in how well their build is performing” ?

If we’re gonna be making changes for any reason mid-cycle, be it bugs, balance, or both, then I think we should just rip the bandaid off and be doing it consistently, across the board, for all items and builds, because that’s best for an overall healthy game state.

The alternative is that countless people will be regularly scrounging for info on what’s currently broken, op, overperforming, etc, and looking for tier lists and guides on how to play “the best class/build” … rather than just doing what’s best for the game/community and its long term health - which is just playing whatever’s fun without having to worry about if everyone else is way ahead of them or playing something better.

FOMO is normal, and understandable, and I’m pretty sure it’s something most players in most games deal with when it comes to this stuff. I don’t think trying to minimize how much of a factor FOMO is for your players is something the devs need to feel bad about or shy away from.

78

If it is a bug, it is a bug and fix it, but if it is not a bug, even if it is overperforming 10x, a lot of people do not even know there are forums like these, who play the game casually. If they then spend the little time they have to gear a character according to the correct information on skills and items, having a blast, then login a week later (after a patch with a nerf) and suddenly their build feels less good or even bad… Let the 10x skill exist for the cycle if it is not due to a bug.
(Leaderboards complicate things here…)

TL;DR;

  • Fix bugs ASAP
  • Balance skills/items between cycles
  • Leadboards… “shrug”
4 Likes
79

By this logic, if they nerfed those builds, you wouldn’t have anything to play. Clearly this game is not for you.

1 Like
80

This is exactly my thoughts as well, thanks for putting it succinctly

81

do you have brain or something?